The need to communicate with each other has always been a critical part of the human experience. We communicate face-to-face with words, gestures, posture, and facial expressions. But as technology has progressed, we have found the need to communicate across greater distances in less time with greater efficiency. Success in today’s fast-paced world requires a lot more than pigeon post and smoke signals.

Did you know that a contact’s perceived wait time can have a monumental impact on the overall satisfaction of the call?

Before developing a strategy to update how your contact center routes conversations, it is critical to understand the routing you currently have in place. What phone numbers do customers call? What websites do they visit? What email addresses do they send messages to? What options do they have? What works and doesn’t work? What do your customers like? What do they hate?

There are any number of questions that could be added to this list, but the point is to have a clear understanding of where your business stands today and how effective it is in routing its communications.

Step 2 – Identify your objectives

Once you have a clear understanding of what currently exists, the next step is to decide what is important to your business. When your project to modernize and/or update its communication routing is complete, what outcomes do you want to have? Perhaps you would like to reduce customer wait time, increase revenue per agent, or reduce cost.

Step 3 – Match routing scenarios to objectives

Finally, choose routing options that will help you meet your business objectives. There are a LOT of different possibilities to choose from and this can be a daunting task. It may be tempting to dive into the most complicated solution that promises the greatest increase in efficiency. But the best solutions are often far simpler… and may seem counter-intuitive at a first glance. For example, it is popular to focus on connecting a customer with an agent as quickly as possible when it may provide a better overall experience to focus on connecting them with the right person.

Still have questions? I’ll be presenting this topic in a lot more detail at CPI’s Queued IN event on December 12. Here are two ways you can join: